NEW DELHI: The target of achieving 1,75,000 MW renewable energy by 2022 may be "ambitious" but it is "not a very high target", a former Planning Commission official has said today.

"175 GW is not a very high target... It may be ambitious," B K Chaturvedi, Former Member (Energy), Planning Commission said at Renewable Energy convention here.

He said that there are certain challenges in case "we have to move towards this target", adding that the health of the discoms is the major challenge.

"The first and the foremost challenge is that this energy has to be bought. Therefore, the health of the discom is the major challenge... First we need to work on the health of the discom so that they pay the renewable energy developers," he said.

He further said that there is also a need to work on those areas in which "we have so far not worked and one of those areas is the offshore wind energy."

"The fourth issue is that of land. The land availability for solar is huge. Part of it can be reduced in case if we can use solar rooftops... It is important that we undertake the research in this area and reduce the availability of land per mega watt of solar power," he said.

The government had earlier said it is committed to accomplishing the target of 1,75,000 MW renewable energy including 1,00,000 MW solar energy by 2022.

"We are committed to making this 1,00,000 MW happen in solar, including 40,000 MW rooftop and the rest of the programmes to make it a 1,75,000 MW by 2022. It is on mission mode. Today, the world is seeing a potential game changer in the programme that India has set out," Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy Minster Piyush Goyal had earlier said.

“To save the environment and to fight climate change, my government has planned a major campaign. By 2022, we want to generate 175 GW of renewable energy. In the last three years, we have already achieved 60 GW or around one-third of this target,” he said.